Our God Who Pursues: Guiding Us Back to HimSample

Week 1: Repentance and Restoration

Redeeming What Was Lost

Read: Joel 2:18-32

SOAP: Joel 2:19

"The Lord responded to his people, “Look! I am about to restore your grain as well as fresh wine and olive oil. You will be fully satisfied. I will never again make you an object of mockery among the nations."

Into the Text

We read in the previous chapter of Joel how God brought destruction on the people of Israel through the locust plague. He aimed to secure their undivided commitment to Him. They had been half-hearted in their worship and had gone after other things and other gods. That's why God was fighting against His own people in order to bring them to repentance. He still does the same with His people today when we wander away from Him, our first love. He sometimes allows problems and hardships to bring us to repentance and draw us back to Himself.

But now God was going to bring restoration. He was going to make beauty from ashes. Can you imagine the hope that this message brought to the people? After their land had been decimated, God, in His kindness, promised to restore and renew that which was lost.

We see that with God there is hope. Even when we, His people, wander away from Him and let other things or people take priority over Him, God will not let us go. In His fierce love and jealousy, He will draw us back to Himself. He gives us His Holy Spirit who convicts us of our half-heartedness and pours His love into us again as we seek Him.

You may find yourself in a season when the locusts of this life have taken away everything. God, because of His great love for you, is allowing hardship in order to have your full allegiance and your whole-hearted worship. Turn to Him in repentance and put your full trust in Him, because one day He will make all things new. You don't know how or when, but you know that He will. He has promised it. Believe Him.

Prayer

God, life on this earth is hard, but you are a God of restoration. Help me to trust you no matter what may happen in my life, knowing that you have a plan to one day make all things new. Amen.